At a recent Surviving & Thriving professional development in Ballard Co, KY, I was honored to meet RB Mayes. When I asked him what RB stood for, he quickly said, “Really Bad With A Smile.” I laughed out loud really hard. I had just finished my segment on sharpening your axe, and RB came back up to me and handed me this stunningly beautifully written post-it note with a quote from Abraham Lincoln:
“If I only had one hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.”
The quote was quite fitting as it was President’s Day and we were in Kentucky, but I was literally taken aback by how beautiful the note was written. I could not get over the handwriting!!!!
I asked him, “Did you just write that? How? It’s stunning!” He again, with a sly smile, shared that his fifth grade teacher boldly stated that she only had given out one A in her 28 years of teaching. When she retired at 30 years, she had given two!
Bam! What a great story! I Loved it and loved meeting RB. He was NOT really bad, yet he was awesomely professional with a witty sense of humor. I loved that he just simply said after 30 years, she had given just two. (not tooting how hard he worked at, or even describing how he accomplished this goal…#humble)
I could see him practicing away, scribing, slowly painstakingly tracing the letters over, and over. He set a goal, and years later is still reaping the rewards, and praise from educators and students everywhere who see his writing.
Thanks RB for being a true professional and for caring about what your writing looks like. Thank you to your teacher for keeping those high standards!
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#LeadershipSparks: Converging Leadership
Quote: “Make sure you’re not just waiting for someone else to fix things, or hoping that things will improve … Figure out what’s going on and make a plan to improve things.”
– Kenneth W. Thomas
